Archives for October 2011

A couple of days ago, I was poking around in my library’s YouTube account – generally tidying up the place, adding some info to video descriptions, etc (more on that in a future post perhaps). While doing that, I started looking at our YouTube Insights (that’s what YouTube calls statistics or analytics), and discovered some neat stuff.

And I thought I’d share. The statsÂ are from Jan 1 , 2011- Oct 23, 2011). I created four “Big Insights” that I noticed, and each insight has a Takeaway. See if you can add some takeaways or insights to my list!

Takeaway: Youtube is its own community. If we want to grow engagement (ie., get more comments, video views, likes, etc), we need to start interacting there. Only 18% of our total video views come from the “embedded player” – which means people watching our videos from the library’s website.

Big Insight #2: Tags are really important!

Links followed to this video – 28% (13,471). This means that someone was watching a video in Youtube, glanced over at the Related Videos sidebar, and clicked on one of our videos.

Takeaway: fill up the Tags box for each Youtube video (found on the Video Information page), and use very descriptive Keywords. Doing this will help your videos be found.

Big Insight #3: Post videos about what you do.

Most viewed videos for that time range:

60 second book review – meditations for women

interview with a photographer

local history info

our really old mysteries of the book depository

The mayor playing his guitar for our Air Guitar event

rhyme and bounce, a toddler/baby video

Takeaway:Â See any similarities with these videos? Me neither. The one similarity is this: all those videos focus, in one way or antoher, on our stuff. So the takeaway here (besides making good, short, watchable videos) is to consistently share what your library does via video. If you can set up a regular schedule, that’s even better.

Big Insight #4: Community exists on Youtube!

Our video viewer demographics:

51% male, 49% female

largest age range segments – 35-44, 45-54, 55-64

Sharing, ratings, comments, favorites – all very low, even though we have 190 subscribers and 188,140 lifetime video views (since March 6, 2007).

Takeaway #1: Our videos are appealing to adults, so we should consider that as we continue making videos.

Takeaway #2:Â People are there – in Youtube – watching our videos. We need to start answering comments consistently, subscribing to other local organizations channels, and grow our community base in Youtube (if we want interaction, video views, and sharing of our videos).

Wanted to make sure you know about this – on November 2, I’ll be leading an ALA Techsource webinar on Facebook.Â It’s titled Facebook in the Library: Enhancing Services and Engaging Users.

And here’s the blurb about it:

Around 154 million Americansâ€”51 percent of the populationâ€”are now using Facebook, according to a recent study by Edison Research. How effectively are you using this direct, free means of communication to reach out to your libraryâ€™s patrons and users? Digital branch and social networking innovator David Lee King will share what heâ€™s learned from years of experience and experiments with the Topeka and Shawnee Countyâ€™s Facebook page. He will answer your questions and share time-saving tips on getting the most out of using Facebook.

Topics include:

Fundamentals for setting up and managing your Facebook page

The difference between a personal Facebook profile and an organizational Facebook page

Planning content for your library Facebook page

How to engage the libraryâ€™s Facebook fans

How to market your library through a Facebook page

You’ll need to register for this event, but it should be a good one if you are interested in expanding your library’s Facebook presence!

You all read Sarah’s blog, right? (if you’re not, you should be). For those of you that don’t – check out her video rant about Amazon, Overdrive, Kindles, and ebooks (embedded above). There’s a bit of “language” in it … so you have been warned if that bothers you.

Great video, great content. And here’s the deal – Overdrive has basically allowed Amazon to sell their books on YOUR PATRON’S KINDLE. Via the Overdrive Kindle ebooks deal. And you and your library’s tax dollars are … paying for thatÂ privilege.

Did Overdrive tell us about that? Nope. Is that cool? Nope. Watch Sarah’s video for the details. And this is besides all the user data/privacy issues that I haven’t seen addressed yet (also discussed in Sarah’s video).

I’m not pointing the finger at Amazon – it’s not their fault. I’d guess they have been planning that functionality for months. Overdrive surely knew about this (I’m guessing here, but we’re talking about normal business practice too). Why didn’t they mention that?

What can you do about this?

For starters – read your contracts/licenses, etc. You don’t have to automatically agree to everything written there – you can actually change things. Or you can try, anyway.

More importantly – if you don’t like what Overdrive “allowed” Amazon to slip in (ie., direct selling and marketing to YOUR PATRONS without your permission) – let them know!

Or … simply don’t buy it.

Overdrive – no more secrets, please! Or if you DID share that and we somehow missed it – could you kindly point out where? Thanks!

Because of the Internet, access to:
Books and other documents have gone from Read to Read/Write
Photo and video output has gone from View to View/Edit
Music and other audio has gone from Listen to Listen/Remix

Nate is introducing the topic of libraries starting to support content creation, and the models behind that.

Chris:

Contra Costa has used vending machines in shopping malls, etc. Washington County is using reserve boxes.

Boston Chinatown Storefront Library – community driven library

Houston – small small branch…

DC – Kiosk branches…

Greenbridge Library – took a community center, and developed part of it into a library